How to Make the Most out of your Fridge #GiveUpBinningFood

It’s already week three of the Love Food Hate Waste #GiveUpBinningFood campaign, where is the time going?!

This six-week long food waste prevention campaign running throughout Lent is broken down into weekly themes to help make reducing food waste at home a more attainable goal. These themes are:

1st March (week 1) Meal planning – when’s this for? Read >> Tip for Weekly Meal Planning
8th March (week 2) Storage – where should I put this? Read >> Food Storage Tips
15th March (week 3) Fridge focus – how do I make the most of my fridge?
22nd March (week 4) Portioning – how much should I use?
29th March (week 5) Food labels – what does this mean?
5th – 13th April (week 6) Leftovers – what can I do with my ingredients?

This week we’re sharing some tips and tricks on how to make the most out of your fridge. One of the greatest contributors to the UK’s food waste problem is the perishables that need to be kept in the fridge. Sadly, many fresh foods are not chilled correctly, or aren’t chilled at all, so they don’t last as long as they should. If they don’t last long, you have less time to eat them and then they get binned.

Saying that, be mindful not to overuse your fridge either. Some foods won’t flourish or ripen in the fridge, like tomatoes and avocados – these need to be stored at room temperature. Pineapples, potatoes and citrus fruit also prefer to be kept out of the fridge.

TOP TIPS FOR MAKING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR FRIDGE

The fridge should be set to below 5 degree Celsius. 4 degrees C is optimal. Consider getting a fridge thermometer if not already integrated and check it regularly to make sure it is still working.

Your fridge temperature is not the same throughout. The fridge door area is warmer which is fine for condiments. The back is colder, so it’s better for perishables like dairy and meat.

Overstocking your fridge makes it hard for air to flow and the fridge becomes inefficient. This will impact the quality of your food. Buy less but buy more often.

Fridge foraging is a great way of pulling out foods that need using up. You’re likely to make an extra meal or two from this simple action. Why not share your recipe creation with the No Waste Food Challenge

Food can last up to three days longer if stored in the fridge.

Transfer tinned food to air tight containers. Once a can is open, residual metal on the rim can leak into food, giving it an unpleasant taste and potential health effects.

Sort out your fridge! It doesn’t take long and it’ll save your food. Wrap up any half used packets such as cheese, sliced meats or sausages to stop them drying out (cheese can also be frozen!). Bring the oldest foods to the front so you can see them and that they get used first.

Cool down leftovers as quickly as possible (ideally within two hours) to stops illness-causing bacteria growing. Store them in the fridge and eat within two days.

Mark packets such as ham slices and pickles with the date they need to be used by once you’ve opened them.

Make sure to visit the Love Food Hate Waste #GiveUpBinningFood page for daily tips and tricks to help prevent food waste at home. Sign up to their newsletter too so you don’t miss a thing! In the meantime, check out their latest video about fridge storage with blogger Liberty London Girl, below!

JOIN US WITH THE NO WASTE FOOD CHALLENGE!

I challenge you, dear reader, to share your own recipes and tips to help prevent food waste! You don’t have to have a blog to enter, simply let me know your recipe or suggestion in the comments below and fill out the Rafflecopter form. You can share an image of your dish, if you like, on Twitter as an extra entry option. Tag me @tangoraindrop and use the hashtag #nowastefoodchallenge to help spread the word! I will include a selection of my favourites in next month’s round-up, where we’ll get to do the challenge all over again! Bloggers – link up with the linky tool, as usual, to be included in the roundup – click here for the full No Waste Food Challenge rules. If you want to enter the giveaway, leave a comment and enter via the Rafflecopter form.

HOW TO ENTER

For your chance to win a £25 Amazon Gift Voucher enter using the Rafflecopter form below. Share your recipe, meal planning or food waste prevention tip in the blog comments. Come back and tweet about the giveaway every day for more chances to win!

TERMS & CONDITIONS

This giveaway is open to UK entries only. Entrants must be age 18 or over. The winner will need to respond within 30 days of being contacted; failure to do this may result in another winner being selected.

The prize is offered and provided by Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary. The prize is to win a £25 Amazon Gift Voucher. There is no cash alternative and the prize is not transferable.

There is no entry fee and no purchase is necessary to enter this giveaway.

The promoter (Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary) reserves the right to cancel or amend the giveaway and these terms and conditions without notice.

Entry into our giveaways will be deemed as acceptance of these terms and conditions.

If you need some help using Rafflecopter, here’s a quick clip to show you how. Rafflecopter will pick the winner at random from all the entries received. I will be verifying entries. Any automated entries or those who have claimed they have made the mandatory blog post comment and really haven’t will be disqualified. It’s mandatory! Please make sure your comment is eight words or longer or Google views it as spam and this negatively affects my spam score. All entries with comments fewer than the mandatory 8 words will be disqualified and deleted.

Closing date is midnight (that’s 00:00 hours, 12 am on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning) on Wednesday 22 March 2017 (GMT). The winner will be announced afterwards.

This is a paid post in collaboration with Love Food Hate Waste, although all thoughts and opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for supporting the brands who make it possible for me to do what I love: mess up my kitchen and share recipe stories.

Always take a list with you to the supermarket, and remain as focused as possible on it. If necessary, allow for some additions, but attempt to stay as true to it as possible, thus cutting out any unwanted and surplus foodstuffs that’ll go to waste!

We use a food planner and make sure we don’t buy too much fresh. We also make a soup once a week with any veggies that need using up and any food that is leftover that can’t be used the next day is frozen

any left over food is normally frozen in this house and used for another day, if its something that cant be kept then we tend to give it to my daughter who lives down the road with our grandson to save her cooking too

Plan some meals. Use up fresh foods such as fruit and vegetables. Fiancé eats fresh fruit frequently, so none goes to waste. Whilst we try to regularly have a variety of vegetables, and do our best to make use of all the fresh vegetables we have within our home. We do enjoy eating out on occasions. Also eat at relatives when invited, so aim to have used up our own fresh foodstuffs, rather than overstock. Sometimes attend Events where some refreshments are provided, try to take account of Events coming up when shopping, so as to avoid overstocking.

To make sure there is as little food waste as possible I plan ahead, I write a list of the food we need. However sometimes there is still some food left over so I often put leftovers into the fridge or freezer and make it into a brand new meal the next day. My son loves this and often helps me.

I make a list for everything that I need, and don’t sway from the list. I always buy loose fruit and vegetables so that I just buy what I need, and any left over meat I either freeze or use to feed the dogs with that day.

I’ve been single for quite a few years & have experienced a lot of food waste in the past. I now only buy fresh food when I need it & have found that shopping more often is the only way to prevent waste.

I batch cook and make meals into portions so I can either pop them in the fridge or freezer for when I want to eat them… Sometimes I just make plain meat mixes that i can add stuff to to make other recipes such as mince beef that Can turn into chilli or cottage pie.

planning meals is the best way to save on waste, I’ve also invested in some good plastic tubs so I can freeze or store what ever we don’t eat to be eaten later. As I’m home every day at lunch time, you’ll often find me snacking on the left overs from last nights dinner as well as my baby girl.

I buy little and often , besides the fact it get so me walking to my local shopping center regularly and keeps me fit , it also means less waste . I tend to plan meals on what I have in fridge/cupboard so not to buy extra and I’ll cook and freeze o save time as a busy single mum of four x

If you have any leftover potatoes and/or veg, don’t throw it out. Once cool, cover and store in the fridge until the next day, when you can put it all together with some seasoning and make tasty Bubble and Squeak or something similar depending on the ingredients.

I think one of the biggest ways of reducing waste is simply being aware of how much you eat. I use leftovers constantly- but some food is not leftover material! There’s not much you can do with already cooked spaghetti after all. I think carefully about how much we need and plan accordingly- factor in leftovers, etc. I measure our everything that I need even if most people do it by handful etc. Then loads of experimentation with leftovers is a big one- bones for stock, using sites where you search by ingredient to find the recipes etc, and being experimental! It’s lead me to trying out vegetable cakes (not a fan of any I’ve had – beetroot was the worst for me), homemade cereal bars and cuisine from around the world (I just used some leftover chicken in a nice Thai dish)

I use facebook groups to encourage me to buy less food and use waste with receipies and tips. I buy yellow stickered food and bulk cook meals and freeze. I love creating new recipies from left overs. I make all my own meat and vegetarian stock – the Veg stock is made from all my veggie peelings.

We always make a weekly menu and shop according to that. if we end up with leftover veg that needs using up I’ll make an end of the week soup for lunch on monday. I love seeing my fridge empty up over the week knowing that all the food will be used 🙂Emma Jackson recently posted…Soups of the World – Spicy Pork & Greens Noodle Soup

I like to freeze bread on day of purchase as it tends to stay fresh when it’s defrosted. So keep the bag from your previous loaf so you can use it to split your new loaf – half to keep out and half to freeze. That way you never end up with stale loaf that needs throwing away.

Freeze everything. My best investment ever was a chest freezer so I make meals and freeze what doesn’t get eaten first time. Then we’ve always got free, healthy ready meals on standby for when we are short of time or too tired to cook.

We freeze a lot which helps. Mainly planning our meals so we don’t buy things we don’t use. If we plan on making something we will sometimes make bigger portions so we have enough to freeze to make extra meals.

To be honest there is rarely a piece of food that goes to waste in my house simply because of my cat and my dog 😉 I also like preparing meals that taste just as good cold as they do hot eg. pizza….which I love eating from the fridge later.

I never buy what i am not needing-every week i write a list of what i have in my freezer and cupboards,do a weeks meal plan then only buy what i need to make up the meals-that way im not spending money i dont need to or wasting food.

We really aren’t good at eating leftovers the next day. They never seem to appeal. So I’ve got clever at cooking just the right amounts and knowing what ingredients can be frozen and how. It’s amazing how many things you can freeze that you wouldn’t expect. Then it’s a case of keeping an eye on what you have in the freezer so it can be used up in future meals.

I try to cook in larger batches, so Soup can be frozen in individual portions, lasagne/pasta bake can be placed in a foil container, sealed, labelled & frozen. I think shopping more frequently also helps cut down on waste. Supermarkets selling BOGOF items certainly doesn’t help the matter!Sammie recently posted…Walnut Pastry Crust Leek Stilton Tart

I check food on a daily basis that is in the fridge to see what needs using up, if it needs using up that day and if I can’t rustle up a meal with it, I will google for a recipe for those ingredients, also will freeze food if I have cooked too much

I always check through what I’ve got in the fridge, cupboards and freezer before writing my shopping list. That way I can plan to use anything that is nearing it’s use by date and stop myself from buying anything I don’t need

I often use random leftover ingredients such as meats, cheese and so on to bulk up a pasta sauce or put them in an omelette rather than thinking to bin it, I also try to go shopping with a few meals planned and stick to only those ingredients rather than just going shopping and buying what takes me fancy.

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